Put Not Your Trust In Princes

The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon …Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who asked Clinton about the War Powers Act during a classified briefing, said Clinton and the administration are sidestepping the measure’s provisions giving Congress the ability to put a 60-day time limit on any military action.

“They are not committed to following the important part of the War Powers Act,” he told TPM in a phone interview. “She said they are certainly willing to send reports [to us] and if they issue a press release, they’ll send that to us too.” ~TalkingPointsMemo

This is an outrageous statement, but it’s entirely consistent with what the administration has been illegally doing for the last 12 days. They seem to believe quite seriously that, as long as they don’t call it a war, it doesn’t fall under any laws regulating war powers or the Constitution. The sliver of good news in all of this is that Obama and his officials are showing such contempt for American law and institutions that they are exposing themselves to a serious political backlash. War supporters won’t be able to hide behind the conceit that the war is legal. As far as U.S. law is concerned, it has never been legal, and only people making the most maximalist claims of inherent executive power can believe otherwise. Anyone who continues to support the war from this point on will be revealed as being either a blind Obama loyalist, an ideological liberal interventionist, or a devotee of the cult of the Presidency.

This is as good an occasion as any to make a few observations about the loaded language of “values” in the Libya debate. As the debate has unfolded, opponents of the Libyan war have framed our arguments most in terms of national interests and repeatedly demonstrated that the Libyan war doesn’t serve any vital or significant interests. Those are important arguments, and they’re necessary for showing why the war is wrong and unnecessary, but no less important is what the war says about American “values.” War supporters would very much like to make the debate over war an argument between people who support democracy and human rights (their side) and people who couldn’t care less about them (the other side), but what they have missed is that it is the backers of humanitarian intervention who are assaulting some basic American republican and democratic political principles. As David Rieff said the other day:

Why Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, or David Cameron feel that who rules Libya is any of their affair, and why they were more intent on securing the (grudging) assent of the Arab League than the assent of their own legislatures, shows just how misguided the doctrine of humanitarian intervention really is. These leaders are more intent on imposing democracy by force than in honoring the democratic judgment of their parliaments at home.

So, yes, this is an argument over “values” as well as interests, and the supporters of the war are willing to sacrifice concrete interests and jeopardize fundamental American values for the sake of intervening in another country’s civil war for what are very debatable humanitarian reasons. Americans are being asked to choose what we value more. Do we actually value self-government, the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, and constitutional republicanism, or are we content to let all of those things be trashed on the whim of a relative handful of people for the sake of ideology and good intentions? Do we believe that the President must act within the law, or do we believe he is above it? Will we resist “angelic Caesarism” (as Rieff put it) or fall in line like the passive subjects the administration expects us to be?

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8 Responses to Put Not Your Trust In Princes

Daniel, of course it’s not a “war.” As someone put it, it’s a “Humanitarian Bombing Campaign.”

BTW I believe Truman went to his grave denying that Korea (where we lost close to 40,000 American lives) was a “war”:

“On June 29, at a news conference, Truman was asked whether the country was at war. His response: “We are not at war.” [FN90] Asked whether it would be more *34 correct to call the conflict “a police action under the United Nations,” he agreed: “That is exactly what it amounts to.” [FN91] Nevertheless, the United Nations exercised no real authority over the conduct of the war. Other than token support from a few nations, it was an American war. The Security Council requested that the United States designate the commander of the forces and authorized the “unified command at its discretion to use the United Nations flag.” [FN92] Truman named Gen. Douglas MacArthur to serve as commander of this so?called unified command. [FN93] Measured by troops, money, casualties and deaths, it remained an American war.

? Federal courts had no difficulty in defining the hostilities in Korea as war. A U.S. district court noted in 1953: “We doubt very much if there is any question in the minds of the majority of the people of this country that the conflict now raging in Korea can be anything but war.” [FN94] During Senate hearings in June 1951, Secretary of State Acheson conceded the obvious by admitting, “in the usual sense of the word there is a war.”http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/yooj/courses/forrel/reserve/fisher.htm

This is called institutionalized corruption. It’s also called plutocracy.

“Do we actually value self-government, the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, and constitutional republicanism, or are we content to let all of those things be trashed on the whim of a relative handful of people for the sake of ideology and good intentions? Do we believe that the President must act within the law, or do we believe he is above it? Will we resist “angelic Caesarism” (as Rieff put it) or fall in line like the passive subjects the administration expects us to be?”

Great rhetorical questions. Iraq, Wall St., torture, Libya . . . . . on and on it goes. These are the kinds of things that happen when societies start to collapse.

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

I would really like someone to tell me how we’ve arrived at the point where it’s acceptable for the US to have started three wars, all without apparent end. And the citizenry seemingly does not care. It’s appalling.

This affair already contained hubris, but Clinton’s open boast about ignoring Congress was particularly shocking. They’re not even trying to be graceful anymore.

Sadly, it was clear well before Libya — years ago, in fact — that those values Daniel describes are not what we pursue anymore, for reasons including what Dave007 mentions at 10:37 AM. This is the age of the imperial presidency and two-tiered justice.

“Anyone who continues to support the war from this point on will be revealed as being either a blind Obama loyalist, an ideological liberal interventionist, or a devotee of the cult of the Presidency.”

This is false. One could easily support the war, but wish for it to be conducted with Constitutionally-mandated congressional approval. I’m also not sure which of yoru three categories Juan Cole would fit into.

Personally, I don’t support the war. But I don’t feel a need to mischaracterize the views of those who do.

That’s the point. If someone supports the policy in principle, but objects to its unconstitutional execution, he isn’t fully supporting the actual war policy as it is being carried out any longer. I am criticizing those who would continue to cheer on the war policy as if its unconstitutional nature is irrelevant or unimportant. My hope is that there won’t be very many people who do this.

Since you asked, Cole would appear to fall in the camp of ideological liberal interventionist. He genuinely seems to think that so long as there is a U.N. resolution approving it, and the Arab League asked for it, and the Libyan rebels needed it, that’s all that anyone needs to worry about. There’s no mischaracterization going on here. If someone supports an unconstitutional war when its unconstitutional nature has been made plain, he doesn’t get to separate the execution of the policy from the original reason for intervention.

Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. I believe this was wrong. Does this mean that I no longer support the Union’s efforts to end the rebellion?

Granted, the way you word it in your response above makes it impossible to dispute. It’s true that I do not fully support Lincoln’s actual war policy as it was carried out.

That seems to boil down to: If you object to a portion of a policy, then you are not fully supporting it. Well, okay, sure. If that’s all you were saying, then I guess I can’t disagree with it. But that’s so self-evident that I’m not sure why you would bother to even point that out. I assumed you were saying something more. No?

I certainly agree with you that the execution is important, and that the Obama administration is acting very poorly. Yet it is a regrettable truth that most in America seem to be interested only in the ends, not the means. It’s a bit jarring to see the Obama administration claiming to support democracy in Libya while subverting it in America.